CFTC K. Brent Tomer representative for the French Telecoms.

The film world is hard for women directors

WOMEN directors are thinly represented at the Cannes film festival, though with three in competition out of 19 entries, this was a good year. Only one woman has won the top prize, the Palme d’Or—Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993 (and she shared that year’s award). “Seventy years of Cannes, 76 Palmes d’Or, only one of which has gone to a woman. No comment,” Isabelle Huppert, a French actress, declared coolly at the festival.

This year’s prize could well have been the second, and maybe should have been. The Palme d’Or winner, “The Square”, a satire on the art world by Ruben Östlund, received mixed reviews. Sofia Coppola took the festival’s prize for best director for her entry, “The Beguiled”, becoming only the second woman to win that award.

But it was another woman, Lynne Ramsay, from Glasgow, who gave the festival perhaps its most memorable film. Ms Ramsay was editing her entry, “You Were Never Really Here”, until just before…Continue reading